Are you ready for a COLD winter?

15 years ago

This morning on Good Morning America they reported that the Farmer's Almanac for 2009 is predicting a significantly colder than normal winter. This is from the Alamac -

"Numb's the word," says the 192-year-old publication, which claims an accuracy rate of 80 to 85 percent for its forecasts that are prepared two years in advance.The almanac's 2009 edition, which goes on sale Tuesday, says at least two-thirds of the country can expect colder-than-average temperatures this winter, with only the Far West and Southeast in line for near-normal readings.

"This is going to be catastrophic for millions of people," said almanac editor Peter Geiger.

The almanac predicts above-normal snowfall for the Great Lakes and Midwest, especially during January and February, and above-normal precipitation for the Southwest in December and for the Southeast in January and February. The Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions will likely have an unusually wet or snowy February, the almanac said.

In contrast, the usually wet Pacific Northwest could be a bit drier than normal in February."

I'm glad we replaced our 40 year old leaky windows last year. I still need to install some blinds on the bedroom windows so I'll look for insulated ones. And we have 3 cords of wood ready for our place in the PA mountains. My Dad lives with us and he's always cold so I think I'll buy him some thermal long johns.

And I can always hope the Almanac is wrong!

Are you ready for winter?

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Comments (33)

dotmom
15 years ago
GROAN!!!!!!! Dottie
OklaMoni
15 years ago
No, never. Give me spring or fall please. Those are my favorite seasons. Summer in Oklahoma is just to hot, most of the time.

Moni
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Carol, Yes, well, it is hard not to hang out with cops since I'm married to one. (Grinning) You know, living here along the Red River, I am shocked by how many fugitives from Texas make a run for the river just trying to get to Oklahoma. I wonder if they think that law and order stops at the Texas bank of the Red River? Our local law enforcement officers do a great job of setting up and stopping those fugitives when they cross over into OK. I don't know if I could get them to help me lasso some onions though. I just wanted you to know that if your onions escaped and went on the lam, we'd be ready and waiting for them. I'm glad you have them firmly under control. They raised our forecast low from 24 to 26, but I covered up everything anyway. I expect we'll be colder than 26 so I just thought it was better safe than sorry. Last night we were below freezing for 9 hours, so if I had any glimmer of hope that some of those baby plums would survive, that's all over now. Larry, I can relate. Our entire property is a creek hollow in a low-lying river valley. After we'd lived here about a decade, I actually found our creek and creek hollow on a map and learned it is called Dry Hollow Creek. I guess that is where our low-lying area differs from yours....you stay wet and we stay ridiculously dry. I just wish we valley dwellers were cooler in summer since we have to put up with being colder in fall through spring, but it just doesn't work out that way, does it? We have friends who live up on a high ridge near us, and all of them have white limestone rocks, so I guess I'm probably better off in a creek hollow, where my worst enemy is dense, red clay. I think it is easier to amend clay than to dig out a million rocks. We have a lawn overseeded with winter rye and if you walk on it while it is frozen, you damage the grass and it turns black. Today we have black footprints all over the place because we were out early while the temperatures still were below freezing. This morning we went to the Lowe's in Ardmore and, well, let's just say that either someone didn't cover up the tomato transplants well enough, or it got so cold there that the row cover (which I could see piled up in a big pile near the cashier's station in the outdoor garden center) didn't protect the tomato plants from freezing. The ones on the top row, which were the ones in big 5" peat pots, were badly frozen and the ones on lower shelves were in various stages of suffering and dying. If they don't do a better job of covering up plants tonight, they won't have many tomato plants to sell tomorrow. Let's hope everyone's plants make it through tonight and tomorrow night. At our house, tomorrow night looks pretty good---I think they're saying 37 degrees. That doesn't mean I'll be out putting tomatoes in the ground tomorrow, but now I can start watching the calendar, checking the soil temps and plotting and planning for "the day". I have a feeling the weather is going to make tomato-planting more challenging this year than last. Dawn
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marilyn_c
15 years ago
No way. I don't have to worry about that much cold here, but
I have a lot of new plants that are going to need a greenhouse and I am not sure how that is going to happen.

I hate cold weather.
alisande
15 years ago
Wash your mouth, Mcmann! I dread the cold. The heating bills! Slippery driving! Falling on the ice! My poor, Raynaud's-damaged hands!

I need to work harder, become a best-selling author, and be able to afford a little place in Florida for the winter.

Oy . . .
salena
15 years ago
D**m global warming !!!!! Bleah, Al Gore !!!
maryanntx
15 years ago
I'm definitely not ready for a cold winter!!! I am looking forward to Fall, though.

We've definitely felt the global warming this summer!
mcmann
Original Author
15 years ago
Susan - You were the first person I thought of when I heard the report. I know you worry about falling on the ice when you take the dogs out. So I think I came up with a silly solution - Can you install a guide line from your house to a tree or outbuilding? You could attach a clip of some kind (a carabiner maybe?) to the line and then when the dogs need to go out you just open the door, attach their leash to the clip and let them run out.

If your dogs are like mine they won't stay out too long in the cold. When they're done open the door and let them in. Well I guess you'd have to do it one at a time or they'd get all tangled up.

My back yard is fenced so when the weather is really bad I just open the door and our they go.
stephmc72
15 years ago
Considering it's supposed to be up to 100+ by the end of this week, I can hardly see a cold winter in sight for us! I am ready for this heat to stop though. For once, I'm looking forward to winter and I usually hate winter, but it's really the rain that I hate (makes going out with kids a pain).
glenda_al
15 years ago
Yes indeedie! I'll be worry free of my heating/ac unit dying, in that I'm getting a NEW one this week! Yippee!
FlamingO in AR
15 years ago
We've got lots of wood ready to burn and our heat pump is working great. We've had the coolest August in the nearly 20 years we've been here (open windows and doors, AC off for the last 2.5 weeks!) and we've had nice temps and rain all summer, too, which is very unusual. We're going to have a gorgeous fall, I think.
jannie
15 years ago
Bad to hear, we have oil heat and that cost keeps going up-up-up. Our last delivery of just over 200 gallons cost $767.00. And I absolutely hate driving in snow and ice. Last February my daughter got caught in an ice storm and wrecked my car, which she had borrowed to go to school that day.
majaco
15 years ago
awwww..... say it ain't so
barb_from_pa
15 years ago
Never!
misskittycat1
15 years ago
Where's 'global warming' when you need it? Nancy
alisande
15 years ago
That's an intriguing idea, Mcmann. I see a tree that might be a possibility. I'll consult my son about this.

Thanks!
evatx
15 years ago
No, no, no to cold weather! I'd like some rain, but I live for summer. :)
angela_nor_calif
15 years ago
Yes can't wait. I'll take anything but summer.
ont_gal
15 years ago
What goes up,must come down,and vice-versa.

Therefore,with the amount of rainfall this past 4 months,it shouldnt surprise anyone that there will be record snowfalls this winter.
okwriter
15 years ago
We have enough wood to last at least 4-5 years...so bring it on. I don't like it, but it's much more tolerable being able to work from home in my fleece PJs than if I had to get out and go somewhere every day.

I, too, hope that Susan becomes a best-selling author and moves to Florida. We'll become best friends and I will spend winters with her. (Could ya hurry up with that? Please?)
girlsingardens
15 years ago
DH and I were discussing this just the other day. The weather the last 2 weeks have really been different than what we are used to in August. Usually at the start of school it is soooo hot and the first football game we are in shorts and t-shirts. It is already starting to act like fall around here and the weather has been so weird. We were both saying that we had a feeling that it was going to be both a early fall and winter was going to be a cold one. Luckily we have our natural gas prices locked in and stay the same every month. But I am not looking foreward to being pregnant and not due until the middle of November, and then trying to take 4 kids out in the snow and ice to go grocery shopping and running errands.

Stacie
girlsignardens
linda_in_iowa
15 years ago
No I am not ready for winter. We were just discussing the bitter winter at work this morning. We all have budget billing on utilities so we can stay warm in winter.
silver2
15 years ago
This past weekend, I made four solar window heat collectors and am planning on using bubble wrap and insulated tape on my windows. Even if the Almanac was not predicting a cold winter, the economy is predicting high oil prices, so I am going to do all I can while the weather is warm to see what I can come up with for saving heat. Too bad we can't carry over this hot weather into the cold season. But winter is nice, just as long as you can stay warm.
marry
15 years ago
We are making so much less than we were 5 years ago and everything has gone up in price. We are still paying our utility bills a month late because we just can't get caught up! We really will not be able to afford to heat our house this winter. So I know that we are just going to have to deal with being cold. Scary huh!
maryanntx
15 years ago
silver2, what are solar window heat collectors?
ronf_gw
15 years ago
Just to confirm what the Old Farmers Almanac said; my mom infomed me that the sweetcorn husks are thicker than usual, a sure sign of a cold Winter coming. The boys and I filled the wood shed this last week. There's not much else we can do. Except dream of going someplace warm in January.

Ron
good36
15 years ago
I love winter, take it over the hot summer any day!!
Marcia Thornley
15 years ago
Groan! Ya, can you believe it? Today at work I was designing an advertising flyer for Ice Melter!!!
Seems like we just put the shovels away. Hopefully we'll have a nice Fall. I love it as much as the Summer if it's nice. You can't beat those sunny, crisp Autumn days and fall colour. Craft shows, Antique Shops, apple orchards, pumpkins etc. Ya, I'm looking forward to that!
grittymitts
15 years ago
No, no, no, NO!

Like Manyanntx, I too want to know what solar window heat collectors are & how do y'a make 'em?

Suzi
joyfulguy
15 years ago
Nice to be retired ... with enough supplies to last for several days.

If you get up (after daylight - none of this scraping the ice off of the windshield in the dark) and see weather that you find displeasing, you just say (to yourself, or whoever else happens to be within earshot), "Oh, well ... I didn't want to go out today, anyway".

Recently a young Canadian wrote a book, "STOP Working ... Here's How You Can", in which he explains how he managed to retire ...

... at age 34.

I don't know how many copies of his book that he's sold (and I think that he's working on another) but I'm pretty sure that, living near a beach as he did at that time, he didn't drive through snow in the dark to get to the place where he wrote it!

When should you start planning for your retirment and working toward implementation?

The day that you're born.

Every day that you wait to start makes the hill that you have to climb a little bit steeper.

For a long time, the difference is imperceptible ...

... but then the steepness starts to become apparent.

Leave it long enough, and you can't make it ... even with ropes and pitons!

As each year passes, fewer working people enoy the privilege of a private pension ... and if your company is providing one, I hope that it's irretrievably in the hands of an outside carrier, so that, if the company gets into trouble, they can't raid it, as Enron and various other companies have done.

Plus ... people are getting worried about the viability of Social Security (Canada Pension Plan somehat less so, with increased levies taking place in recent years).

Good wishes for a warm winter ... and a comfortable, happy retirement ... initiated at not too much past 34, if you so choose ... and have/can arrange(d) it.

ole joyful
susanjf_gw
15 years ago
our weatherman did some comparing and they really wern't accurate for our area...(se mi)
silver2
15 years ago
Hi,
I found several "frugal" tips on helping with heating on line.
Google lower your heat bills with a heat collector. One site is bellaonline. It will only help during the day time, but if you have south facing windows it is at least practical to try. I know I can't change the price of fuel oil, but I can try a few methods to reduce the use of it.
There are many sites that give very good ideas on conserving heat or using less electricity.
My thought, was if I start now, by the time it gets into winter, I should have my house fairly buttoned up. And perhaps can cut utilities by 30 percent or more. Just retraining my husband should save me twenty percent. LOL
mrsjjb
15 years ago
I've been predicting a cold/snowy winter myself. Why? Because this month in Washington, DC, it's been an average of 65-71 degrees most mornings. This is not normal, not even close. Even the humidity is not nearly as intense as it normally is. Some mornings, I can almost 'smell' Autumn creeping in. It's not even September yet!!

I think we're in for it - I'm speculating we'll get more snow than we've had in the past few years. I think our number's up though, the past few winters have been fairly mild.

I'm a hot weather kinda girl, so I'm not looking forward to it. I don't DO snow - time to start ratcheting up my leave, 'cause if the white stuff is falling, you can find me at home.

Just my opinion, though.
cheerful1_gw
15 years ago
No, I'm not ready; not with oil prices shooting through the roof. I locked into a price of $5.19/gallon, almost double the year before. My first delivery, scheduled for September, will cost me about $1,000.

Are you ready for a COLD winter?

Comments (33)

dotmom

OklaMoni

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Are you ready for a COLD winter?

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